


A Time of Unrest

by FKAHerSweetness



Series: The Young Mr. Crawford [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Adopted Will, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Harm, M/M, One Shot, Pedophilia, Prequel to Quiet Asphodel, To Be Read After Quiet Asphodel, borderline abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 14:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5789617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FKAHerSweetness/pseuds/FKAHerSweetness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before there was a prince, there was a boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Time of Unrest

**Author's Note:**

> This is the prequel to Quiet Asphodel, a oneshot which is to be read after QA! Not before. Really. For all sorts of reasons, but none of them involve spoilers. Sally forth.

This is new.

            Will was not awoken; no bellowing woman's voice to rouse him and the others. Indeed, no others. Him, singular, in his room of blue, his eyes opening on the ceiling. Through parted curtains, the rosy-fingered dawn stirring the sky. And downstairs: hushed voices and pans clinking, water rushing from faucets. A static melody of music. Will moves now from between the sheets, setting bare feet to carpet. From his room down the hall, and then the stairwell, clinging to the polished banister. Curls atop his head in disarray, face fogged with sleep.

            Light in the kitchen pouring onto hardwood floors. Squared off by the door jamb and meeting with the line of Will's small toes. Heavy onion scents in the air, and garlic and rosemary. The pop and tzzt of bacon against a cast-iron skillet. The ding of the toaster and the slight acrid odor of burnt bread.

            "Jeez, Jack."

            "We'll just put jam over that part."

            "No, we will not."

            Will lingering in the shadows. Glancing around the threshold to watch the shuffle of pink slippers and broad brown feet. From the semi-circle of windows near the breakfast nook, the street stretched green and grey, the lamppost out near the mailbox dimming in the oncoming day. Will rubs the heels of his hands against his boxers and pale thighs. Straightens. Then steps into the light.

            Phyllis is the first to notice him, and she turns fully to smile. Jack, with one jam-covered thumb in his mouth, raises his other hand in greeting.

            "Hey, look who's up."

            Will looks towards the stovetop. Then at the breakfast table set for three. He nods, and smiles.

*

It is the first week of March and raining consistently. Will looks from his bedroom window – _mine_ , he still thinks in wonder – and glasses the fields behind the Crawford house. They are vast and sloping, and runoff from the rain pools at the base of the hill, turning the grass to marsh. In the few days that Will has since been instated into this home, he has made it a point to familiarize himself with all of it, on his own.

            When he first arrived, Phyllis and Jack gave him a tour from the ground floor up. The screened-in patio, the television room, Jack's study, all of the bedrooms. But they did not include the basement. Will eyed the small hall and three steps that led down into it. He did not make issue.

            Now he has nothing to do. Phyllis and Jack have supplied him with numerous books: fairytales and fables, akin to the ones he read in St. Sebastian's. They stack on his small desk and around the base of the chair. Yet the rain excites something in Will, and he is too fidgety to sit still and pour over words. He leaves his blue room and pads down into the stomach of the house.

            In the main hall by the staircase, Will pauses to listen. To the left: Phyllis' humming. And above: Jack's footsteps on the hardwood of his office.

            Will takes himself to the right, down the unlit hall and to the door of the basement. He touches the old handle, glances back, curls falling with the tilt of his head. At the emptiness behind him, he is satisfied, and moves ahead. Opens the door and is met with a grey-dark and concrete steps. A wooden banister which he holds onto as he descends.

            It has crossed his mind that he was not shown the basement for the existence of harmful tools. Perhaps a rusted saw or even a hatchet. There stood a shed out behind St. Sebastian's, one which the nuns did not venture to. They left that to the groundskeeper, Mr. Frame, who trudged out to it on a daily basis. Used the saw and rope within to cut down branches and drag them off the property.

            Will remembers standing near it not so long ago. The stark white rise of birch trees off in the distance and patchy grass under his old brown shoes. Looking into the one lone window of the leaning building and finding all manner of hardware and tools. A rake with crooked teeth. One thick red spool of thread.

            Will finds none of these things in the basement. There is a rope hanging from a bare bulb at the bottom of the stairs which Will can barely manage to ensnare. On his tip-toes. He looks down; the concrete floor is sodden with rainwater and there are four mousetraps, one in each corner.

            Otherwise the room is empty save a wooden chair and a bare workbench. There is a smell of mildew. At the back left corner, Will finds that one mousetrap has been successful. A mottled grey rat in its prongs. Its back broken, and a few drops of blood caught in long whiskers. Will doesn't know much of mousetraps, and doesn't know if it could still spring. He lends a tentative finger – presses the rat's bony body. Then two fingers. He kicks at it, it hits the wall. The trap has yet to do anything, so it must be safe, he thinks. After a few failed attempts at opening it, he manages such with a foot and a sharp yank. The rat spills out, its body like a small bag of change. Things loosened in it. Sallow. The trap snaps shut and Will prods the rat on the floor with his big toe, squatting down to look closer. Its eyes are open.

            "Will?"

            Will jerks and whirls around, pressing himself against the back wall. Jack stands on the last step of the stairs, the light switch swinging in front of his face. A shadow moving from left to right.

            "S-Sorry," Will mumbles, looking at the rat by his toes. "I, uh."

            Jack watches him for a moment. Will can feel it. He says, voice lightened, "You catch a mouse?"

            "A rat." Will nudges it with his big toe. It flops onto its back, small claws stretched towards the ceiling. As if begging for help. Or just lamenting. "But I didn't catch it. Your trap did."

            There's a dripping somewhere. It echoes.

            "They come in down here when it rains," Jack says.

            "I would too."

            Jack takes a foot to the previous step. Motions for Will with a smile. "Come on," he says, "let's go."

*

Will heard them talking: a week to familiarize himself with the house, the routine. Then off to Black Fox Elementary, to join their fifth grade class. Phyllis made comments under her breath – she must think Will is hard of hearing, but he is not, and he heard them perfectly well, thank you – about what questionable education must be administered at orphanages. She did not think the nuns to be at all welcoming or encouraging. On that front, Will does find she is right. But, too, he thinks, that is not their job. Their job is – was – to keep the children safe, alive, and free of much in the way of deciding factors in their budding personalities. A clean slate for parents to imprint on. No one wants used goods. Will heard Sister Blake say that once, behind her hand, to Sister Delaney. _They_ thought Will was hard of hearing too, he supposes.

            But he is not.

            On Monday, Will is in black pants, a white collared shirt. He has a backpack with Superman on the front, and his name written on the label in black marker. In the side view mirror aside the passenger's seat, he can see the curls Phyllis attempted to tame with a brush.

            She drives him through the slow going traffic in the early morning. The sun hides in comforters of clouds. The rain abated for a moment.

            "I know this must be pretty nerve-wracking, Will," she says. She has taken to using this tone of voice with him: like a coo. Will does not find it disagreeable. He quite likes soft voices. "But just remember: this is a great school, and the teachers will really help you get the material. I've heard the kids are nice too. My friend at work has a daughter who goes here."

            "Mm."

            "Did you have to leave many friends behind at the orphanage?"

            Will shakes his head. "Didn't have any," he says.

            Phyllis eyes him quickly. The line they are in moves into the curb of the school building; a drop-off where children slide from their family cars into the safety of the building. "None?"

            "None."

            "I saw you talk to a few kids there."

            "Just girls."

            She snorts laughter. "Girls can be friends, Will."

            "I _know_ ," he says, frowning. "Except, they weren't. They just liked playing with my hair."

            "Really?"

            "They said it's girly, like theirs."

            Phyllis makes a strange face – as if she is trying to decide whether to echo the girls' statement or refute it. Their car pulls to the center of the curb and Will opens his door suddenly, slides out and shoulders his backpack in one motion. Phyllis says to have a great day. Will tells her not to worry – he knows his hair is girly and it does not trouble him. He waves a bit, then shuts the door.

*

It takes Will until after lunch to decide he does not like Black Fox. That's okay. He did not expect to – still, he kept himself open long enough to make proper assessment. He expected the ringing din of high-pitched voices; he expected, too, the teachers making show of him by suggesting he introduce himself to the class. What he did not expect was that, along with the nametag on his desk, he would be forced to choose from the back window sill a flower in a tiny clay pot to take care of for the remainder of the year. All of the good flowers were taken by those with seniority in the class. Roses, hyacinths, tulips. As such, Will was given a choice between a dandelion and an asphodel. A dandelion is a weed. Will attempted to tell the teacher – a Mrs. Lee – this fact, and was quickly hushed, and she shoved the asphodel into Will's hands. He looked at it on his desk, head placed atop crossed forearms, and thought morosely that he might have preferred the weed.

*

At the end of the day, when the cars pull up to the curb, Will feels minutely lost. He looks into the windshields as the other children do, and forgets who he is looking for. A small, infinitely sharp panic comes upon him. A pinprick. Then, it is over, and Will steadies himself, remembers his new name: Will Crawford.

            He sees Jack.

            Hopping into the passenger side, letting his backpack fall to his feet, he straps on his seatbelt. Looks ahead, waits for the ride home.

            Jack is looking at him. Will can see it in his periphery. "So," he drawls, tapping thumbs on the steering wheel, "good day?"

            "Rainy day."

            Jack's mouth turns to a thin frown. "I meant, how did it go?"

            Will considers for a moment. "Not so great."

            "Really?"

            "I don't like it there."

            Jack nods slowly. The car begins to move. At length, he says, "It's tough to get used to someplace new. What didn't you like about it?"

            "Smells funny," Will says. This is not true, but he figures it better than trying to explain about the dandelion.

            Jack says, "I could talk to the principle about getting air fresheners."

            Will thinks this is a joke, so he makes a show of chuckling.

            Jack looks pleased. "Make any friends?"

            "No," Will says, shrugging. "And I don't think I'm gonna."

            "What? Why not?"

            "Not likeable."

            "That's crazy. You're extremely likeable, Will."

            "I don't mean me. I mean them."

            Jack is laughing. He thinks this is a joke, Will supposes, so Will nods his head as if Jack is right to laugh. Finally, when they come to a stop sign just before the turn onto their street, Jack says, "I can be your friend, Will."

            Will looks at the creases on his pants. "Thanks," he says. "But I don't think dads and friends are the same."

            Jack watches Will, his profile. Will allows himself to be watched. Jack knows he is right – this is why he is silent. And the next thing he says is something about Indian for dinner.

*

It is as Will told Jack – he does not make any friends. The tumult of the student body tosses and churns around Will, yet does not seek to downturn or sink him. Indeed not, it goes about as if Will does not exist. This is the best possible outcome, Will thinks. As the week wears on, he is incrementally aware of his budding relief at the sight of the oncoming weekend. He has, previously, never paid much attention to the days of the week in such a fashion. They blurred at St. Sebastian's. The only day that really stood out was Tuesday, which was the night they received butterscotch pudding for dessert. Studded with white chocolate chips. Will used to warm his cup of pudding between his thighs, rub it with his hot hands, blow on it, stir it, all to make the chips melt and then mix it together. The burnt orange streaked with white mesmerizing. Like eating calico cats.

            Simultaneously, Will is aware of Jack's altering moods as the week approaches its end. He comes home after picking Will up from school, and immediately turns in to his study. On Wednesday, he cannot come to pick Will up at all, and Phyllis does so instead.

            On Thursday, he is making calls in his study. Will crouches around the corner, his head cocked to the side, fingers clawed in the carpet. He speaks on evisceration and missing organs. Will endeavors to creep closer but hears Phyllis' footsteps near the bottom of the stairwell and thus makes haste in scampering back to his blue room.

            On Friday evening, a man comes by.

            Will sees the car pull up from the window of the guest bedroom that is between Will's room and the hall bathroom. He stands on tiptoes and watches this man – brown of hair, clad in a dark blue suit with a light blue handkerchief at the pocket – approach the porch. Downstairs, the front door opens, and Jack's deep voice greets warmly.

            When Will hears the two of them approach the stairwell, Will nearly runs from the guest room to his own, and shuts the door. The two men pass his door, for the study down the hall. After Will is sure they are in to stay for a few moments, he creeps back out, and situates himself at the corner nearest the office door. Adopts his crouched position for listening, and does so for a long while, holding onto his knees steadily as he becomes more and more engrossed. Sucks and bites his bottom lip.

*

It happens inevitably.

            Rose comes to Will in the afternoon recess, as he lingers at the edges of the playground. Will does not know her real name. Nor does he know the names of any of his other classmates – he refers to them as their flowers, which are easier to see from his desk than their nametags. Behind her, far behind, stand Lily and Gardenia, wringing their hands together and grinning.

            "Hey, Will," Rose says. She points to her own head. "I like your hair."

            "Yeah," says Will.

            "Do you think we could play in it?"

            Will looks at the other two. "All of you?"

            She nods. "We'll be careful."

            At this point, Will supposes he should have known not to allow this. The girls he allowed to play with his hair at St. Sebastian's were not dear to him, but he had known them for quite a while. Unified by the will of the Universe – It killed their parents and brought them together, without their say so or consent. In such a way, they were like siblings. He does not know these girls, but he allows it. Sits in the grass just off the concrete, yards from the tree line beyond that. Boys – Orchid, Carnation and Daffodil – kick a soccer ball not far away, and each time their feet land true, Will flinches.

            Gardenia is braiding one lock of Will's hair above his right ear. "It's so soft," she says.

            "Yeah," says Rose, "way softer than my sister's."

            Lily does not comment. She has a bright purple rubber band that she uses to give Will a side ponytail.

            Will's eyelids drift half-shut. He watches the boys play on the lush grassy hill. He thinks back to the things he has been hearing outside of Jack's office. He speaks with that man often now – who Will has come to know as Dr. Frederick Chilton. He has not met the man properly, as he hides whenever the doorbell is rung, but he watches all the same. And they talk – on this man called the Ripper, he who is eviscerating people up in Maryland. Quite nice a word, Will thinks. Eviscerate. He looked it up in the dictionary – the one from the living room bookshelf. Phyllis walked in and asked what word he was looking up. Will couldn't get a lie out fast enough, so flustered was he by the definition, and so he told the truth. Phyllis looked as if she wanted to say something else before she relented and said, _Education!_ After the dictionary, he went to the encyclopedias. Evisceration. There were pictures. Black and white drawings, but with enough detail to entrance Will. Someone is doing that to people in Maryland. Jack and Dr. Frederick have said the word _monster_ regarding this man. Will is familiar with the notion – a monster who kidnaps people and takes them to a dark place to kill. He has been imagining that over the past few days: evisceration – but with what? Knives? Teeth? Does he do it with his teeth?

            Something hits Will's foot – the soccer ball kicked by Orchid; and as it hits him, Will jerks to his right and latches his mouth onto Gardenia's prodding hand.

            Will is sent home early.

            In the car, sitting in the passenger's seat at Jack's side, he idly licks blood from the back corner of his mouth.

            "Are you okay, Will?" Jack asks.

            "Mm." Will continues to lick. He looks up and aside at Jack. "Sorry. Didn't mean to make you stop work."

            Jack sighs, shrugs. "I'm off for the day."

            Will taps his fingers against his knees. His pants scuffed with grass stains. "Did you catch the Ripper yet?"

            Jack nearly stops the car. The brake jerks under his foot and Will slides minutely forward, until Jack resumes the gas. He is blinking quickly over at Will. "What? Where'd you hear that?"

            "Nowhere." He pauses. "I listened to you talk to Dr. Frederick."

            "H-How many times?"

            Will considers. "All."

            " _Will_."

            Will lowers himself a bit in the seat – not so unlike a dog readying itself for a kick.

            Jack looks taken aback. Tents his eyebrows. "I," he says. "I'm not mad at you. I just– don't want you hearing things like that."

            Will straightens. His mouth tastes coppery. "S'okay," he says, shrugging. He is quiet for a long moment, as they come to the stop sign before their street. As they turn, and come into the driveway, Will presses his lips together. "I liked it."

            Jack parks. Looks over at Will.

            "It's kind of neat," Will says. "Catching bad guys." He pauses again. "Monsters."

            "I wish it weren't so... neat, sometimes."

            "Wish I could do that," Will murmurs.

            "Do what?"

            "Catch monsters."

            Jack unbuckles his seatbelt. "You mean work for the police? You want to be a policeman?"

            Will says no, he does not want to be a policeman. He would like to be a catcher of monsters. With that, he unbuckles himself, and slides from the car.

*

Will has never seen a dying person before. He thinks this, and then corrects himself, because technically everyone is dying, all the time. But it is less pronounced in everyone else, far less than it is in Layla Crawford, who Will is to address as Grandmother. It does not matter what he says to her, he supposes, as she would probably not respond. She is in hospice care, and she has pancreatic cancer. It is eating her with teeth, teeth as sharp as the Ripper's. Will heard that morning Jack and Phyllis arguing over whether or not to take Will with them to visit Jack's dying mother.

            "What would be the point?" Phyllis asked. Her voice hushed as she knew Will was awake and hanging in the boughs of the house like some rainforest animal. "It's not like he can have an actual relationship with her – and I mean, she doesn't know him from Adam."

            "Let's just see what happens."

            "Jesus, Jack."

            And Will is here, in the sun-drenched room, with bright pink wallpaper and a vase of sunflowers on the small table near the bed. There is a boy in class, Sunflower, and his hair is just as yellow as the petals strewn across his desk. Will watches them sway in the open window breeze for a moment before turning his attention to the woman in the bed. She is wasted away. Jack says she is ninety-nine years old.

            How terrible, Will thinks, to live that long and have to look like this. Go through all this.

            On the drive home, it is silent. From the backseat, Will says, "I hope I die young."

*

Phyllis and Jack have a hushed conversation in their bedroom late at night. They are trying harder than usual to quiet themselves but from Will's position near the banister, he can hear well enough their intent. And as such, he wonders why he even endeavors to listen, for there is nothing he can do to stifle their plan. He waits until the next Friday night, when Dr. Frederick comes to visit once more. This time, Will is wholly aware, he visits not for Jack but for Will himself.

            In the bright of the kitchen, where Will stands barefoot and in his school uniform, he looks up into the man's deep-set green eyes for the first time. His face is smooth, his shoes shine in the fluorescence.

            He bends slightly at the waist and holds out a hand. "It's good to finally meet you, Will. I do hope we get along."

            Will looks at Jack and Phyllis; each of them visible over the psychiatrist's shoulders. Jack is nodding. Phyllis looks anxious. Will gently settles his small white hand in Frederick's and watches as it is engulfed.

            "Mm," he says, biting his lower lip.

            They sit in Will's room; Will on his bed, Frederick in the desk chair pulled to the center of the room. The curtains are parted and the last of the dusky light seeps into the room, hits the side of the doctor's face. Will has been unable to take himself from the man's eyes, those which are hardened stone versions of Will's own. They concentrate on Will – startling, almost, as if Will is an old master's painting, to be given much consideration. To be pontificated on. To be awed.

            Will crosses his legs, bends them until he is in a lotus position. Then folds his hands in the center of his lap. He thinks he must look businesslike. He has seen this before on television: a psychiatry appointment. The first thing Dr. Frederick must ask is: _What was your first childhood memory?_

            But instead, he says, "You have good hearing, Will."

            Will tilts his head back. "Uh-huh."

            Dr. Frederick smiles. "Your father told me – or, do you prefer to call him Jack still?"

            Will considers. "Should I call him father?"

            "You call things what you would like them to be. To grow into. Naming is a statement of intent."

            Will is silent.

            "Now," he resumes, "I was told you like listening in on your father and I when we speak. Does it not bother you, Will? To hear such things?"

            It is noticeable that Dr. Frederick has avoided saying, pointedly, _the Ripper_. Will says it for him, and adds that it does not bother Will at all – for he looked into the dictionary and encyclopedia and he has seen what evisceration is and he, too, has seen what a Wound Man is. This causes Dr. Frederick to look at Will deeper and Will cannot hide the pride he feels at having caused such spark in that swamp-green gaze. He smoothes the pads of his thumbs into the deep valleys of his bare feet. Shifts upon the bed. "You're so lucky," he tells Dr. Frederick, "getting to help catch monsters."

            Dr. Frederick is smirking, shrugging. "Yes, Will, I'm quite lucky."

*

Will has kept to himself at recess. The widened fields warm for the oncoming summer, and it rains less. He watches the others from his place at the edge of the concrete, where it meets with wild grasses. The girls have kept their distance from him, all circling Gardenia who has since had her bandage removed. From Will's desk, back and adjacent to hers in class, he can see his own teeth-marks. When she catches him looking, she turns away with a huff.

            Will is sitting alone in the grass under a haze-bruised sky when Orchid and Sunflower approach. Their measured steps, their light-up shoes. Orchid is thick, stocky; Sunflower golden and thin-limbed. Both of substance where Will is a waif. They convey the need to speak with Will alone and usher him back to the tree line where the three of them come to stand behind a thick sugar maple. Will with his back against the bark. From the playground, he hears a girl's shrill giggle.

            Orchid holds his left hand out to Will. "I want one," he says.

            Will studies him, silent.

            "Yeah, me too," Sunflower says, holding his aloft. "Jackie's looks neat – like she got bit by a wolf."

            He must mean Gardenia. Will continues to eye from one proffered hand to the next.

            "Does it hurt?" Sunflower asks Will. "When you do it, will it hurt a lot?"

            Will shrugs. He thinks for a moment then asks who is first.

            Orchid shoves his hand in Will's face. Waggles his fingers and grins. He looks satisfied as Will takes the hand gently into his own, and looks up once more at the both of them. He lends an air of gravity to his gaze, as if they are undertaking something great. _Are you sure?_ this gaze asks. Both boys nod fervently, seemingly excited by Will's added fanfare. Will grips Orchid tighter and places his mouth on the soft webbing between thumb and pointer finger. He bites cautiously, then harshly, as if he is the Ripper himself and tearing into a victim. He feels Orchid tremble but he holds himself still for Will.

            At what point does a victim stop the struggle? At what point does one hand themselves over to inevitability and, eventually, the prowess of he who has mastered them? The arms of their killer. Their one true destiny.

            When Will's mouth is coppery, he releases. Orchid looks at his hand, dripping blood, and his eyes are red, wet. He says nothing. Will looks to Sunflower, who seems unnerved. But Will knows this of his fellow male children – they will not be outdone. Thus, the challenge has been issued. Through the treetops, aurous bubbles of sun speckle Will's face. He takes Sunflower's proffered hand as well.

            After he is done with both of them, they do not even mutter thank yous. They look at their bleeding hands as one would look at miracles. They go back to the playground, and the next day two more children come to Will and usher him behind the tree.

*

Dr. Frederick continues to visit. He speaks with Jack in his study first, and Will has come to notice that both of them raise their voices minutely. He cannot believe, at first, that it is for his benefit. But as time goes on, he begins to think it so, and smiles to himself while languishing around the banister, crouching and listening. The Ripper has not made another kill for weeks. There were three victims. And now the man has vanished as if into thin air. Was it all a game? They contemplate this. A show-off just announcing that he is alive and capable, to send the authorities into tizzy, and then watch from shadowy sidelines?

            Will stands on sandy shores, looking to the offing. Holds his hands around his mouth and calls: _I'll never forget you, you know._

            After the doctor visits with Jack, he comes to Will's room. Will has come to wait for him, sitting on his bed, arranging the desk chair at the center of the room. He moves it close to the bed, then back a bit. Then close again. His school uniform is the nicest clothing he has, so he wears it.

            Dr. Frederick is so kind. He thinks of Will particularly, he must. No one but Jack and Phyllis have given Will such consideration. And how did he know that white chocolate is Will's favorite food in the world? He brought with him a whole basket of it, which was wrapped in cellophane and laced with a bright green bow.

            Green. Like the color of Will's eyes.

            He knows Dr. Frederick speaks highly of Will to Jack – he can hear it. The way he has said Will is so bright. The way he said Jack should be nurturing his proclivities. He has made mockery of Black Fox and said Will should be attending a magnet school. Said that Will would never flourish in common education – on this, he is wrong. But he does not know that Will's classmates all bear his mark and this is Will's definition of flourishing. The dictionary does not know everything.

            However, when the teachers finally become aware – angry parents calling and complaining for the marks on their children's hands – they tell Jack that Will must go to school elsewhere. It is one week before summer vacation and Will must leave behind his asphodel. He does not care.

            Dr. Frederick grins at him in his bedroom. Phyllis and Jack argue downstairs. The doctor says, "It's just as well, Will."

            " _Yeah_ ," Will says, elongating the word and returning the toothy grin. "Just as well."

*

Summer is dry and blinding and Will runs out into the fields behind the house. He feels free. No school to go to, no duties to perform – worksheets, math problems, state capitals, _bite here, Will, hey come on, me next, me next_ – and only the endless golden grasses stretching out before him as wheaten eternity. The trees are heavy and green. Far, far to the back of the property is a small creek which is thin and muddy, and Will places his small square toes into it. His birthday passes and Will becomes an eleven-year-old and he speaks with Dr. Frederick on the things he has been reading in books provided to him. Jack's hesitant hands giving him all manner of psychology books, sociology and criminology. Will recites these things and his own understandings of them to both Jack and Dr. Frederick. Phyllis does not like to hear them – her brow furrows in something between worry and unrest – and so Will only speaks to her on the bugs he saw within a rotting tree, a cloud that looked like a bonfire, his longing to own a puppy.

            For longer and longer intervals, Dr. Frederick and Will are left alone together. Jack will go to the store during their talks, Phyllis will prune the garden in front of the house.

            Dr. Frederick has abandoned the chair, and sits on Will's bedside. Down by Will's bare feet, as Will reclines near the headboard.

            "He'll come back," Will says, fiddling with the frayed end of a pillow cover. "I can feel it."

            Dr. Frederick eyes him. "The Ripper? Yes, I think so. Your father does too. Everyone waits for him like a thunderstorm."

            "I like thunderstorms."

            "What is your assessment of this storm? Do you think the Ripper is insane? Is he doing this because he's been traumatized?"

            This is what Dr. Frederick thinks – Will has heard him say it to Jack. That the Ripper must have been cut, marred, in some way when he was young. Some inciting event which happened and now causes him to mar others in brilliant display. Will has seen the pictures – at first stolen from Jack's study, then handed over by the man willingly.

            Will adjusts himself, slides one leg straight to let his toes rest just an inch from Dr. Frederick's hip. The dying light casts shadow upon Will's face.

            "Trauma," Will says, "is an event of the past that has not been mastered."

            Dr. Frederick smiles.

            "But the Ripper mastered it. So–" He pauses, and taps Dr. Frederick's thigh with his big toe. "He's not traumatized."

            As the summer goes on, Will feels vindicated. Just before the brown and yellow of autumn, the Ripper's particular style reemerges within the burrows of the northeast. Jack is strung tight and Will follows him at length, head tilted to the side to attune himself to Jack's moods, his meanings. One day, Jack brings home a particular gadget, something small like a light, and he ushers Will into the basement with it. When he rises from the basement again, he feels warm and soupy, his eyelids heavy, his hands like lead weights at his sides. He rubs the side of his neck against Jack's hand, filled with some hazy longing for contact. Phyllis comes home and Jack tells him, in a quiet and even voice, that he must grab hold of himself. He must be natural.

            "I _am_ being natural, Dad."

            Jack blinks, pauses. He looks anxiously over at Phyllis' form in the next room and takes his hand to pat Will fully upon the head. "Good, Will. That's good."

            Will smiles, shudders. He washes up for dinner.

*

A woman named Ms. Jimenez takes Will where Black Fox left off. Will finds this method of education far more efficient, as Ms. Jimenez does not offer flowers or weeds, nor does she insist Will even leave the house. She brings all to him. Will shows her his books, and slowly, she trades out her middle school materials for things of more import. Will grins at her with every correct answer he gives and she looks put-upon but not unimpressed.

            Phyllis is not overly pleased, Will can see that clear enough. The tutor was recommended by Dr. Frederick–

            _just call me Frederick, Will, we are friends, aren't we?_

_oh the very best_

            –and Phyllis does not much care for him either. She thinks Will should be spending time with children his own age, not a stern tutor and a psychiatrist who looks at Will in such a way. As if the man has a sweet tooth. And Will is spun sugar. But Phyllis does not know everything, because Will does _not_ spend all of his time with a psychiatrist and a tutor, thank you. He spends quite a lot of time outside when weather permits. He spends time counting the budding stars, climbing trees to investigate birds' nests, catching mice in the fields, and he spends an awful lot of time with Jack in the basement.

            Will does not tell Phyllis this though. Jack has not insisted upon such, but Will knows: this is their secret. Just between them. Dr. Frederick may have an inkling of what they do but he does not know all. He does not know that Will comes to sometimes and the mice are dead and there is blood in Will's teeth. He does not know that there is a whirring siren in Will's head that sounds like a computer booting up whenever he looks at the Ripper's photographs. He does not know that when he once said, in passing, _Ah, that's good, Will_ , Will nearly fell over with the amount of euphoria he felt. From his toenails to his scalp.

            Of course, that is not the full of it. Will thinks that in some way, the Ripper must be aware of this as well. Somewhere across the ground they both tread upon, the Ripper must look up into the chilled night sky and be aware that there is a boy coming to fruition. One that will catch him with all the quickness and precision that he executes his own eviscerations.

            Will thinks it so.

            He looks up into the blackened sky. The points of light. From where he lies in the high grasses, chest heaving, breath puffing before his cheeks, he thinks the Ripper is looking up too. Will feels the earth move. He feels tiny insects under his body. He is bare, his clothes in a haphazard pile aside from him. His eyes are as Venus and Neptune. He swallows.

            "Will? Will!"

            Will shudders and gasps, instinctively sitting upright in the grass; leaves caught in his curls, his neck coated finely in blush.

            "M-Mom," he says, and realizes he is shivering.

            She trots up to him through the grass, a shawl of pink wool around her shoulders. She looks at him with eyebrows raised infinitely and a gaping mouth. "What are you _doing_? Are you crazy?" She tosses the shawl over his lithe form. "You get in the house this minute!"

            On the way back to the house, she lectures him on perverts that roam the night, of wild dogs, of any number of dangers. She tells him he will catch a cold doing things like that. Will grumbles, hugging the shawl in, that he will not catch a cold.

*

Will catches a cold.

            He spends the next week without Ms. Jimenez and takes up residence on the living room couch, wrapped in blankets and using cushions as fort walls. He watches documentaries on lions pack hunting on the Savannah. Phyllis tells him it is too violent. So he turns to watch a documentary on Ted Bundy.

            Phyllis snatches the remote from him. "What did I say?"

            Nearing the end of the week, after much Tylenol and many bowls of chicken noodle soup, Will finds he is regaining his strength. He has missed sorely his time in the basement, that which Jack withholds until he is well again. But Dr. Frederick comes to visit – Will can hear him enter the house from where he resides in the bathtub on the second floor. Strawberry-scented bubbles in mounds all around him. The small echo of the porcelain room. He hears Jack say he is going out for just a moment and tells Dr. Frederick that Will is to be out of the bath in just ten minutes or so.

            Will places his mouth into a bubble-mound, pulls back, has a mustache and beard.

            He thinks he should get out soon, as the water is becoming tepid. Just before he makes a concrete decision, he hears something at the door. A small rapping of knuckles upon wood.

            "Will?" Dr. Frederick's voice. "Are you in there?"

            "Mm," Will calls. The water ripples around his torso.

            Silence, for a second. He asks, "May I come in?"

            Will blinks at the door. Beneath the crack, he can see a very still shadow. Will runs a wet hand through his hair. "Mm," he says.

            There is another pause, and slight movement at the door. When it opens, Dr. Frederick stands in a dark blue suit with pale handkerchief. One hand shoved into his pocket, the other clutching a small paperback book at his side. Will smiles at the man, half-hidden behind a mound of bubbles. His alabaster shoulders and back bared as he sits slightly hunched over.

            "Hello, Will. I heard about you getting sick," he says. Lingers in the archway.

            Will is nodding. "I'm not so bad off anymore."

            "A good thing too," he says, now moving into the bathroom. Shoes clicking along tile. He hesitates for a second, then sits upon the closed toilet lid at the side of the porcelain tub. Holds aloft the book. "I brought you a get-well-soon present. Seems its already taken effect."

            _Beyond Good and Evil_. Will smiles, grins. "How did you _know_?"

            "Oh, just a guess."

            "A great guess. Thank you." Will's grin settles into a small smile then, and he raises one knee out of the water, wraps his arms around it and leans his head to connect. Looks at Dr. Frederick through half-lidded eyes. His curls limp and sodden. Dr. Frederick has one leg crossed over the other, chin propped up on his hand. The honey-stare he gives Will is something goosebump-inducing, despite the still-warmth of the bath. Will bites his lower lip and looks at his towel on the ground.

            "My dad is out," he murmurs.

            "That's right, Will." Dr. Frederick pauses. "He'll be back in just a moment."

            Silence descends upon them and Will feels hot in his stomach, at his neck. He has that feeling again. As if he is a painting to be considered greatly. He is inside his own head and does not immediately react when Dr. Frederick takes a wet lock of his hair and tucks it behind an equally wet ear. Will jolts a bit but Dr. Frederick has already receded, sitting back as if he had not moved. The tentative smile at his mouth.

            Dr. Frederick says, quietly, "You are a terrible wonder, Will."

            Will feels something strike inside his chest. He gnaws at his lower lip. And from below, the front door of the house opens. The thick clunk of Jack's boots along the wood floors. When Will looks up again, Dr. Frederick is softly shutting the bathroom door behind him. The book upon the toilet lid. Will looks at it for a while before getting out of the bath.

*

The pattern has formed. The Ripper kills in groups of three, then leaves for a period of months, during which the northeast worries itself into something likening hysteria. In these months when the Ripper is silent, Will's time spent in the basement is more exhaustive, and he comes to with blood in his mouth and sweat dripping from his bangs. Jack has also spoken to Ms. Jimenez and instead of working along high-level textbooks, Jack has asked for supplements of college-level criminology and sociology leanings to be introduced into Will's education.

            Behind a half-closed door, Ms. Jimenez asked, "Isn't that a bit– much?"

            "You said it yourself: Will is gifted."

            "Well, yes, but–"

            "Just do it."

            The months move by as leaves on a fall wind. Will finds himself in and out of lucidity in the times of intensive training. He is sleeping one minute, sure he is dreaming, and then Phyllis is shaking him as he stands in the kitchen, screaming. The nightmares, like flashes of darkness, move into the day. Once, Will jolts himself into consciousness while in the middle of his training. In the dimness of the basement, he comes to with his hair drenched in sweat, and strips of mouseflesh under his nails.

            Jack is rubbing his back in soothing circles. Will sits hunched over on the floor, legs akimbo, fat tears dripping onto the concrete beneath. Teeth clenched together.

            "Nng." He can hear himself making that noise. Strained and prolonged. "Nng, I– Dad–"

            "What is it, Will? What's wrong?" His voice is hushed.

            "He's mine," Will says, sobbing. "He's _mine_."

            "Yeah, Will. I know."

            Will shakes his head. He watches himself as if from remove. "I want everyone to _know_ about it!"

            "Shh. Shh. They will. I promise, one day, everyone will know. You'll do well, I know it."

            "S-Say it. Please."

            "Good, Will. It's good."

            After that comes the pills. Jack feeds them to Will on a daily basis. He says they are to take the edge off and Will is comforted by their presence. His nightmares diminish into nothing, and he forgets for a time the things he has seen starring at him in the dark of night; his closet, from under his bed. Things seen in the forest. He is a monster-hunter and he will be a truly great monster-hunter. That is what seats itself in the center of Will's mind. He often thinks of the Ripper's reach, and how he has struck fear into the shivering hearts of civilians in this corner of the country. Will knows he himself is the same, for he too has given a group of people a mark. Even when his teeth marks wear from their hands, and they scab over and the scabs scrape off. Even ten, twenty years down the line. They will be united by this one thing. These flower children who came to Will, who Will gave himself to.

*

 There are times when Will does not see Dr. Frederick for quite a while. Will understands: the man is busy with a budding psychiatric practice. That does not mean Will does not miss him. When the Ripper reemerges, Dr. Frederick is around much more frequently and Will feels moth wings beating at his ribcage.

            Dr. Frederick has made mention of Will recently, as he turns from his twelfth year into his thirteenth:

            "You are growing up so fast, Will." He pauses, taking his fingers to ghost lightly along Will's toes. Sitting at the foot of the blue bed, he looks over into Will's eyes at the head of it. "One day you will be hunting, and it will be a long-awaited glory."

            "That'll take forever," Will says, throwing his gaze to the posters of Neptune and Venus alongside his bed.

            "Your father works his way up in the FBI to secure a place for you."

            "I can get in on my _own_ merit."

            Dr. Frederick smiles, laughs. "You shouldn't be so quick to turn away help. Sometimes familial connections are all we have."

            Will does not refute it at the time but still thinks that Dr. Frederick is wrong. Will has so much more than mere familial connections. He has Dr. Frederick. And he has the Ripper. That is quite a lot. He has felt so engorged by this comfort, this system of what he believes to be support. Like walking in a daydream, through basement training and glossed pictures of organs spilling from corpses. Thus, it is breath-taking and too sudden when Dr. Frederick is to leave.

*

"What do you mean– leave?"

            "I mean just that." Dr. Frederick stands in the early autumn heat just before dusk. In front of Will at the driveway of his home, amidst gravel and desecrated brown leaves. Will is barefoot, his toes scrunching in the rocks and grit. And the wind blows Dr. Frederick's hair. "I've got a good opportunity to become an administrator at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. This will give me much less time, and I can no longer consult on the Ripper case."

            "But what about me?" Will demands.

            "Will–"

            "You were just here to _consult_."

            "You knew that. I also enjoyed spending time with you."

            "Not enough to continue to," Will says, and feels his upper lip rise in something of a snarl. He looks down, aside. A dandelion in the grass. "This is stupid."

            Dr. Frederick sighs. He looks up over Will's head, as if to search the windows for Jack and Phyllis watching. He seems to find nothing, and takes a step closer to Will, and to fully take Will's hand into his own. Squeezes and rubs his thumb along the smooth skin.

            "I'm doing this for you," he says. "For both of us."

            Will rolls his eyes.

            "You will need help if you want to hunt, won't you? Think of all the psychopaths I can put at your disposal."

            "This is all for the future," Will says, sounding unconvinced.

            "Yes."

            Will feels a heat at his eyes but he will not cry. He will not give the man the satisfaction. This relationship was temporary, he realizes. As are all things, save for that between Will and the Ripper. Will swallows and holds his head aloft. "I'll've forgotten you by then. So don't bother thinking of me."

            "I'm afraid I won't be able to help it."

            Will tries to shake his hand loose. "Let go of me," he says.

            But Dr. Frederick does not. He grips Will tighter and leans down, in. Until their green eyes are locked and spaced by mere inches. In a tone of desperation, the man says, "Do you know what happens in a castle, Will?"

            Will exhales, shakes his head.

            "A prince becomes a king."

            Will furrows his brow. He opens his mouth to speak but suddenly the feeling of Dr. Frederick's grip on him is gone and so too is the doctor. He walks back to his car through the gravel. Quickly, as if something is chasing him. Some terrible desire.

*

There is no way for him to call Dr. Frederick and say please come back I'm sorry I don't know what I did but I'm sorry and if you want to I'll let you–

            He isn't sure how he would end that. Instead, the little flower Will has harbored inside himself wilts and Will grounds it beneath the heel of his foot. Then, to make sure such a flower does not bloom again, he burns the tiny garden.

            In the few days following the man's departure, Will continues to sneak out late at night and gaze at the stars. He lies behind the house in the high grasses, in the cold and in the rain, and he looks up at the ceiling of the world. He raises one thin arm and uses his pointer finger to trace the words _the Ripper_ along the galaxies, and he says aloud, like an incantation, "If you can see this, come to me."

*

Will is quiet, sedate, for a long period of time, and then one day, during his tutoring session with Ms. Jimenez, he throws a nearby flower vase against the wall. It shatters, and the floor is covered in tulips and water and leaves. The woman exits the house hurriedly as Will paces in her wake, in turns screaming and kicking the wall.

            Jack is climbing his way up the ladder to secure a place for the future Will. Dr. Frederick leaves to take residence in a castle to secure psychopaths for the future Will. Oh how lucky, Will thinks bitterly, is the future him. All these arrangements being made. All the fuss. For what?

            His oncoming. A true monster-hunter.

            But Will is that. He is that _now_.

            "I'm ready," Will says in the gloom of the basement. He has asked Jack here, and he stands in the center of the concrete above the pile of mice and raccoons and snakes and other small fauna he has ripped to shreds. He has fur in his nails. He motions down to them, hands held palms-up. "See?"

            Jack looks. He stands very still at the base of the stairs.

            "Will," he says slowly, "what did you do?"

            "What I'm meant to."

            Jack's brown eyes rove the animals, and Will, who is smiling in a hesitant fashion. Hopeful.

            "Take me to work with you," Will says, "and I'll help you get the Ripper."

            "You're not ready yet, Will."

            Will jerks, bares the smallest bit of his teeth. "Then _when_?"

            "I'll let you know. Just– don't do this again."

            Will laughs shortly. He can no longer abide standing still and thus begins to pace in a widened circle. Green eyes fervent in the half-light. Fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. "So," he says, mumbling, "I can do it when _you_ say, but I can't do it on my _own_."

            "That's right."

            "And why is that?"

            "Because," and Jack's voice takes on bass, "that's the way it's going to be. You want to hunt? You're going to do it properly, and not a moment before I say you're ready. You're only setting yourself back with these outbursts, Will, so I suggest you quit scaring Ms. Jimenez, stop running off and worrying your mother, and start acting like a normal person."

            "I'm _not_ a normal person."

            "I know that. But you can balance it. These two things." Jack pauses. "You have to."

            Will ceases his pacing, his back half turned to Jack. The tendons in his arms loosen, his muscles relax. He feels heat at his eyes and this time allows himself to cry. There is no one here to preen for. He turns about and allows Jack to see the redness at his eyes, the tremble of his lips. Jack swallows and steps down onto the concrete, crosses over the pile of dead animals. He takes Will's shoulders in hands.

            "You can do it, Will," he says.

            Will's mouth is wet. He murmurs that yes, he can.

            And in seventeen years, Will is going to look up with a blood-streaked face, amidst a kitchen soaked in morning light and blood. His body wracked in the after-tremors of gunshots. A man across from him riddled with holes. A girl bleeding out on the floor. He will have this same shuddering expression upon his face. He will feel thin and fragile as a perch fin. And he will wonder how and he will wonder why. Yet he does not wonder so at the moment – he feels Jack's hands upon him and a sense beneath that which says wondering does no good. He is safe and secure and held, oh, he is held.

           

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> And now we all know why Will dislikes Frederick at the start of QA. Ah yes. Anyway, this thing is done, and no, before anyone asks, I don't do sequels. For what's next, hit the blog.
> 
> www.metaphorgoneawry.tumblr.com
> 
> Comments are love!


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